The principal goal of this supplement to the NIH-BRIN proposal is to develop a statewide science research core (SRC). The SRC will provide the impetus to build capacity for research activities within the framework of the existing KBRIN. The SRC will consist of a set of research projects. This will entail an expansion of KBRIN to include new faculty and student participation. To maximize the leveraging potential of institutional assets and resources these two sub-cores will emphasize strengths in the research-intensive and comprehensive institutions respectively. A neuroscience focus will make use of emerging strengths of the two research-intensive institutions, the University of Louisville (UL) and the University of Kentucky (UK), to encourage collaborations and training in their numerous research-active laboratories. This sub-core will allow us to draw researchers from the comprehensive institutions into one of the larger basic-biomedical research endeavors within the state, and it will provide us the opportunity to build additional capacity in this discipline. The second sub-core will provide a population biology focus, and this will make use of existing faculty strengths in biology departments of the ten comprehensive and primarily undergraduate institutions that are KBRIN-partners. This will help us to engage a larger number of undergraduate students in the process of discovery than could otherwise be accomplished. The objective will be to attract students, mostly from rural backgrounds, into the principles and practices of research, while engaged in exciting projects in field biology. Support for six new research projects in each of these two sub-cores is requested in this application. The application of genomics and bioinformatics tools and methods are common elements of these two sub-cores. Therefore, the existing KBRIN- administrative, mentoring/training, genomics and bioinformatics cores will be major players in the development and implementation of the SRC, and will provide a supporting role to insure the success of the research projects. The outcome of adding the SRC will be a sharper research focus for the KBRIN. This will provide a stronger partnership and multi-institutional commitment to the development of biomedical research and education in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.